


ethereal

by apricots



Category: Glass no Kantai | Glass Fleet
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Relationship(s), M/M, Murder, Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 15:05:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6990325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apricots/pseuds/apricots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Ralph backstory, since canon didn't give us one. A brief look at his younger childhood and how he met Vetti.</p><p>Implied relationship, but nothing explicit; roughly canon-level Ralph being in love with Vetti.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ethereal

Ralph Fitzlard Deon de Lac is ten years old and the world is impossibly huge. He knows it is, out there just beyond his reach; his family’s territory is not very big, but when he stands on the balconies and looks out he isn’t looking at his family’s territory. He’s looking out into space, at the territories and planets dotting the horizon, the distant Black Cross. There is so much out there he hasn't seen. He stretches his hands out over the balcony to the sky, but even on tiptoe he’s barely taller than the railing.

He is restless, outpacing his tutors, running out of books to read. He’s devoured the family library, the collections of musty boring old tales that no one's touched in years. The histories are his favorites; he likes the kings and the politics. He goes out into town when his parents will allow it, to scour the libraries and bookshops for things he hasn't read. They don’t know how else to keep him entertained, so they let him out as long as he promises to behave.

Children are not meant to be seen or heard; he shouldn't leave the house at all, not until he turns sixteen, but as long as he has an escort and he doesn't say a word to anyone and he keeps his eyes down, it's allowable on their own territory. It's not like any real people will see him. Just peasants.

Child he might be, but he is old enough now to pick up on certain things. He knows, for example, that he is smarter than everyone around him, and he knows that they don’t like that. They're unnerved by him. They don't know what to do with him. He knows that there are things they don’t tell him-- lots of things, about the world and the government and everything-- and he starts to resent the doors shut in his face when adults are talking.

No one talks to him. No one listens to him. He is a child, and it must be as though he does not exist. There is nothing for him to do besides read, and read, and read. He has no siblings, so he is entirely alone. He has never met another child, though he sometimes sees the peasant children running and shouting in the streets. He envies them their freedom, their movement, their noise.

Confined to the shadows, Ralph watches his parents' guests from the windows of the mansion, creeps by the closed doors, peers over the balconies, and he imagines what it’s like to be listened to. He imagines what it's like to exist. To be a person. Ralph is a ghost, and he moves through the world without affecting it, as is proper.

Sometimes he knocks over expensive vases just so someone will come running to scold him, just so someone will talk to him. Just so he knows he's real. He hates feeling invisible. He hates feeling like he's just waiting for his life to start. He wants to be real and important and seen. He wants someone to listen to him.

 

***

 

"Vetti Lunard Sforza de Roselait."

The guest is announced, and the announcement echoes through the enormous entrance hall. Ralph cranes his neck to look at him; just one guest, all by himself, is unusual. They usually have whole retinues, associates and households and wives and families. Not this one. This one is different.

Ralph crouches at the top of the stairs, hanging onto the banister and peering down into the foyer. He whispers the name to himself so he doesn’t forget, stumbles over it a little-- "Sforza," he says, wrinkling his nose. Too many consonants. " _Sforza_."

He says it until he gets it right. Vetti Lunard Sforza de Roselait. It's a pretty name, when he gets used to it. It's like a song. They've never had a Sforza over before. He would remember: he remembers everything.

It’s not a good vantage point for snooping, but until the guests are all gone-- even the servants, he wearily recalls, even the servants-- he has to stay out of sight. He’d be visible from down there, if someone looked up, but hardly anyone ever looks up. Sometimes the servants see him, and they politely pretend they didn’t, and he sees them smile a little. No one real looks up, though. There’s nothing to look at, and there’s a chandelier between him and the door so they’d have to look through the light to see him.

He squints. There-- straightening from his polite bow, a beautiful young man with a mess of blond hair. Vetti etc etc etc. He seems younger than other people who visit, and more handsome, and dressed more plainly. It’s all tailored, but there’s no real decoration, no flash, no glitter. Just a green coat, black boots, white gloves. Ralph likes him immediately; he decides that his favorite color must be green (like Ralph) and he doesn’t like lots of jewelry and flash (like Ralph). It could be just that he’s poor, of course, but Ralph decides it’s more romantic if he’s living a sort of ascetic lifestyle, intentionally rejecting the glitzy aristocratic aesthetic in favor of something more practical. It’s more heroic that way, he thinks.

Vetti etc etc etc does not take off his gloves like people usually do. He does not take off his coat, either. He smiles when he talks to Ralph’s mother, who blushes a little bit. Ralph hates it when she does that. It’s so annoying. The servants are waved away, scattered to tend to Vetti’s horses and carriage, to fetch the tea, to prepare dinner.

As the servants scurry away, Vetti glances around the entryway and his eyes lock onto Ralph’s. His eyes are strange: one is too dark to see from Ralph’s little spot, but the other is gold, bright and glittering like the chandelier. He smiles, right at Ralph, and he doesn’t look away like he’s supposed to. Ralph stares back. Vetti sees him. He’s looking at him, not just idly noting his presence.

Hesitantly, Ralph takes one hand off the banister and waves. He’s not sure what else to do. He’s sitting down, so he can’t bow.

Then, he hears Vetti speak, very clearly now that there’s hardly anyone else there. His voice carries, even though it's not that loud. "Your son?" he asks Ralph’s mother. She flushes and scowls in the direction he’s looking, at Ralph, and Ralph scoots back on his step.

"Yes, Lord Sforza, I’m so sorry, he’s a disobedient creature," she says. Ralph sticks out his tongue at her as soon as she’s turned her eyes back to Vetti. Vetti sees, and Ralph sees his smile widen enough that his teeth show, just a bit.

"I’d like to introduce myself," Vetti says. Ralph’s heart stops. He’s never been introduced to anyone outside of his family. The only people he's ever been introduced to are his cousins. He’s just a child. He’s not _supposed_ to be introduced to anyone. Of course his mother will refuse, but a delirious flutter of hope swells his chest; Vetti sees him and wants to talk to him, like he’s real and important.

"Well, I," Ralph’s mother looks shocked. "That’s hardly appropriate, my lord. He’s only a child."

"I’ll just be a moment," Vetti says to her, and then he starts walking up the stairs. He just walks up the stairs! Like it's nothing! Ralph is frozen on his step, sprawled with his back against the wall and his sleeves rolled up around his elbows. He's hardly in a state to be introduced to anybody. He doesn’t know what to do. Stand and bow? Run away? Children should be neither seen nor heard, but it’s too late for the first one. The second one is the more important one-- one must not under any circumstances be heard-- but if Vetti comes and introduces himself he ought to introduce himself back, right? It would be rude not to.

Panic and exhilaration make him sort of dizzy. Vetti sparkles in the light-- his golden hair, his golden eye-- and Ralph thinks he has to be some sort of faerie prince. Who else would be so strange and pretty and not care about rules?

Vetti stops a few steps down and leans over, putting himself at Ralph’s eye level. Ralph is very small; Vetti is not particularly tall, he doesn't think, but he's never been this close to anyone besides his parents, so he wouldn't really know.

"Hello," he says. His voice sounds different up close. More distinct. Vetti has a nice voice, he thinks; it's very fitting for a faerie prince. "What’s your name?"

Ralph glances down at his mother, who looks quite thoroughly furious with him, and then back at Vetti, who is smiling encouragingly. Surely it would be more rude to not answer. Just this once, maybe he could break the rules. Just this once, someone wants to hear him. Someone’s asking.

"Ralph, sir," he says hesitantly, almost a question. He’s not sure his eyes could get any wider. Vetti keeps looking at him with his strange mismatched eyes like he’s looking for something in particular.

"How old are you, Ralph?"  he asks-- another question. More than one question. Ralph is dazzled and sort of confused.

"Um, I'm. I’m ten," he says.

Vetti tilts his head to the side, still looking at him. Ralph has never felt so looked at, never in his life. His eyes don’t go anywhere else. He wants, suddenly, very badly, to do a good job talking to this man. Maybe if he does a good job, other people will talk to him, or at least Vetti will keep talking to him, and he'll be real and visible for a little while longer. A million things to say tumble over each other in the back of his throat, a billion questions clamoring to be asked. Why are you here, where are you from, why is your eye glittering like that, did you come here in a ship or on a territory-- on and on and on.

What tumbles out, awkward and wondering, is: "No one ever wants to talk to me."

He flushes, immediately embarrassed, but Vetti just keeps smiling at him. It's dizzying. Not a lot of people smile at him. Is he expecting something? Is he done? Ralph decides to try again at the saying-things thing, since Vetti still hasn't left. Maybe the most pressing question-- but they’re all pressing. He opens his mouth and then freezes, tries to think, can’t.

"Where are you from?" he asks, after an uncomfortable pause.

"A better question would be to ask where I’m going," Vetti says. He flicks his fingers and produces-- possibly magically-- a rose from thin air, which he offers to Ralph with a flourish. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Ralph."

Ralph takes the rose, too distracted by Vetti’s glittering gold eye to think about it sensibly-- it pricks his fingers and palm, draws blood, and he winces at the little stab of pain.

Vetti doesn’t apologize. He’s halfway back down the stairs, smiling blithely at his mother like nothing strange just happened, like he didn’t just swoop in like an angel sparkling and producing flowers from nothingness. Ralph clutches the rose to his chest and scurries off before his mother sends someone to get him in trouble.

 

***

 

Where is he going? If that’s the important question, he wants to find the answer to it. To chart the course, he needs more data points.

His parents wanted him out of the house so he wouldn’t cause any more trouble, so he goes to the library in town to pore over archived newspapers. He wants to find Vetti Sforza. To know where he's going, he has to know where he's been. His rose is tucked behind his ear, the thorns cut off with a knife he stole from the kitchen.

On his own, he finds nothing. He has his servant ask the librarian for help, and they present him with only three things. A command in the army, granted surprisingly young; an ambitious man, rising quickly through the ranks, sharp and intelligent and capable. Victory at a sword-fighting tournament; he is competitive, determined, fast, graceful. The last thing, the oldest thing: a house fire. His parents were both killed, his childhood home destroyed. Vetti came from tragedy and earned his position himself.

Based off this, where is he going? Ralph can only think: up.

Cannon fire shakes the entire building, an explosion somewhere nearby. Books fall off the shelves, glass shatters, and more explosions go off at varying distances. Ralph scrambles outside-- his servants are nowhere to be seen-- and sees his family’s territory burning. They are being bombarded; ships are flying low over the territory and firing at the ground, destroying everything.

He runs home thinking, deliriously, not of his parents or the house but of the faerie prince Vetti, glittering and beautiful and perfect.

His house is on fire already when he staggers to a halt on the cobblestone road leading up to it. It’s very on fire, actually: it's already half collapsed. The mansion has been directly bombarded, he thinks. Bent over double with his hands pressed against his knees, he gasps for breath, having run as fast as he ever had in his life. His lungs are burning from the smoke and the exertion.

Everyone is dead, he thinks. The cobblestone under his feet is stained with soot. He coughs when smoke stings his throat, and he blinks away tears when smoke stings his eyes. The smoke burns, and the fire is very close, and everything he's ever known is gone. He doesn't know what to do. Where can he go? What can he do? The bombardment targeted his family, specifically. Even if he were to somehow magically escape the territory, he would be killed.

A ship swoops low, bringing with it a wind that whips at his hair and cloak and blows more smoke into his face. This time it seems to smother him; he coughs and chokes and collapses to his knees. He can't breathe. He clutches at his throat and wheezes, vision blurring, trying desperately to get air and only inhaling smoke.

Strong hands lift him up off the ground easily, like he weighs nothing at all; he would yelp, but his lungs are full of smoke. He coughs more and sees, blurrily, a head of gold hair, a glimmering gold eye. He says something quiet and beautiful, but Ralph can't really hear it over the racket of the low-flying ship hovering above them.

He faints.

 

When he wakes up it's quiet and the air tastes clean and strange. His lungs still hurt, but not too bad, and it's much better now that he can't feel smoke clogging up his throat. He breathes. The bed he's lying on is more comfortable than his at home, and much larger. When he turns his head to the side, blinking and furrowing his brow, he sees a wall of enormous windows looking out at the black void of space.

Sitting next to the bed, cross-legged on a strange desk chair, is the golden-haired knight in shining armor who swooped down from the sky to pluck him from the fire. Vetti is looking at him again, intently, and Ralph isn't sure what the polite thing to do here is. He can't bow, because he's lying down. The most polite thing to do would be to make himself invisible, but he can't do that if he doesn't even know where he is.

"Lord Sforza," he says. His voice is a ragged miserable croak, so he clears his throat. It hurts. He struggles to sit up, because that seems polite. It's important to always be polite. It's a terrible breach of etiquette to be speaking at all, so he's anxious to balance the scales. Everything feels heavy, and he's exhausted, but he manages to prop himself up against the enormous headboard nonetheless.

Everything here is enormous; the room, the bed, the universe outside the windows. Ralph is keenly aware of how small he is. The ceiling is very high, and the furniture looks very expensive, and there is clothing draped over the back of a chair. There's a desk with papers on it. This is someone's room; presumably Vetti's. On a ship, not a territory, he thinks; there's no horizon that he can see, just depthless void and stars.

"I really prefer 'Vetti,'" Vetti says. He leans over and touches Ralph's cheek with his left hand-- his white gloves are still on, stained with soot though they are. The smell of smoke clings to the fabric of the glove. Ralph freezes. His breath stops in his throat.

No one has ever touched him so softly, or looked at him so gently.

Just like Ralph always secretly hoped, a faerie prince came out of the sky and whisked him away in his starship, glittering and ethereal. The world is as full of magic as it is in stories. It's all so perfect.

Still, he must be polite. Above all, one must be polite. "Lord Vetti," Ralph says stubbornly, and Vetti exhales a soft breath of a laugh. For a moment he is entranced, but even Vetti's beautiful face can't distract entirely from the fact that Ralph is not wearing his clothes. He can feel cool air on his skin-- an unusual sensation. The crisp buttoned-up carefully tailored layers are all gone, and in their place he's wearing a loose soft tunic and short pants. His neck is bare, and the tunic hangs loose enough that his collarbone and shoulders are exposed as well.

To have his shoulders, neck, and arms uncovered in the presence of a stranger is indecent. It's inappropriate. He might as well be naked. Flustered, Ralph flushes and hastily pulls the blankets up to his chin. "Wh-- I-- where are my _clothes?_ "

"They're being washed," Vetti registers no embarrassment or offense, just amusement. "You're very proper, aren't you?"

He almost relaxes, but then a thought makes him flush deeper red. "Did-- did-- did _you_ undress me??"

The volume of his own voice startles him, and he immediately feels even more intense embarrassment wash over him. Vetti still looks unfazed, even when he says, "Yes, I did."

Ralph takes a deep breath and composes himself. He shouldn't shout. Overreacting solves nothing. He has to be polite. Even if he felt no obligation to be polite-- which he very much does-- it hurts to raise his voice, because his throat still stings. He keeps the blankets clutched under his chin and says, carefully, "That was very... forward of you, Lord Vetti."

"Hmm," is all Vetti says to that. He brushes his thumb over Ralph's cheek, an almost absentminded gesture, and seems uninterested in pursuing the topic any further. Instead, he asks, "How are you feeling?"

His heart jumps into his throat and, once again, he feels almost overwhelmed by the attention. No one has ever asked him that: a child is hardly a person at all, so a child's feelings aren't worthy of any kind of attention. Vetti is too painfully kind, to extend to Ralph a courtesy reserved for adults. And he looks at him like he cares, like he wants to know the answer. As though Ralph were a person, an alive visible person worthy of attention.

Ralph is embarrassing himself with his poor manners. If Vetti is going to be good to him, he ought to be more appropriately well-mannered. He takes a moment to calm the heat turning his face bright red, and inclines his head in place of a bow.

"I am well, my lord," he says.

Vetti tilts his head back up with strong fingers on his chin. He clicks his tongue sternly. "I killed your parents, boy, there's no need to be polite. You ought to be angry, or at least frightened."

Ralph remembers, suddenly and all at once, the fire. His home collapsed, his things blown up, the town burned. From the scale of the bombardment, they planned for complete annihilation. The whole piece of land would be wiped clean and terraformed from scratch under a different name, a different family. It will be as though it never existed. His home is gone. Thousands of people are dead. His family's legacy will live on in archives, if they're lucky, and in him. There are only two reasons this kind of annihilation is carried out: as punishment for high treason against the crown, or as a show of force by a conqueror at war.

It was Vetti who ordered the bombardment.

Dimly, Ralph thinks he's supposed to be angry with him. He gazes wide-eyed up at Vetti, his mismatched eyes and soft smile, and feels nothing of the sort. He feels no grief for the loss of his parents. They weren't important, and they didn't like him very much. He feels no real sense of loss at all.

Yes, he is uprooted and unsteady, without ground under his feet or a path laid out ahead of him. He does not know where he is or where he is going. But this, he thinks, is what it feels like to be free. His parents were nothing. His home was a prison. The stars are within reach at last.

Looking at Vetti, his prince, his knight in shining armor, he can't possibly feel angry. Instead he feels an intense desire to keep Vetti happy. He wants Vetti to keep looking at him, to keep smiling. He's never felt so real. It's like the life he's been waiting for has finally begun. The glorious hero he's always hoped would come for him has come, and he's here, and if Ralph can keep him close then he _knows_ everything will be perfect from now on.

Hesitantly, he lets go of the blankets and touches the back of Vetti's hand. He'd never be allowed to do this, before, but now-- now it seems okay. His fingertips brush the soft fabric of Vetti's glove.

"You didn't kill _me_ ," he says. "I don't think I have anything to be scared of."

Vetti's eyes flick away from Ralph's face and linger instead on his bare neck. "There are things far worse than death," he says quietly.

To Ralph, there is nothing more frightening, nothing worse, than death. Death is the end. A void. He doesn't believe in rebirth, in an afterlife, in the Black Cross' supposed promised land; for Ralph, death means becoming nothing.

It's never come up before, but Ralph decides now that survival is what matters the most. To stay alive, no matter the circumstances. To keep moving forward. To find a way to make his mark, to change the world, to _be someone._ He can't die without ever living.

"I'm glad I'm alive," he says brightly, and smiles.

Vetti draws his hand back, away from Ralph's fingertips, and he sits back in his chair. The look he gives Ralph is appraising. Interested. "I wonder how long you'll keep that sunny disposition, in my company."

"In your company...?" Ralph repeats, then blinks as the words sink in. "You're going to keep me with you?"

Vetti inclines his head.

No longer uprooted, then, just transplanted. There is a future ahead of him. There is a path he can take, and Ralph doesn't have to take it alone. If he can prove to Vetti that he's useful, good, worth his time, then he can follow Vetti's uphill climb. If he can prove that he's interesting, Vetti will keep him forever-- and he can't imagine wanting anything more than that. Who could ask for more than the opportunity to follow a fairytale prince on his journey to victory?

 

***

 

Vetti shines, all gold sunlit perfection, and he lets Ralph live in the warm glow he casts. Everything Ralph has, Vetti has given to him: his books, his life, his power. The dependency doesn't bother Ralph one bit. It doesn't even occur to him to be bothered, most of the time.

Vetti gives him all the books he wants, listens to what he has to say, idly plays with his hair during meetings. _My Ralph,_ he calls him, and every time Ralph feels a pleased warmth rise in his face. He is someone. He exists. No one could argue that he's nothing, that he's worthless, that he's not important. Not any more.

It's impossible to ignore Lord Vetti Sforza's shadow. The only child in the room, always: he sticks out in a crowd, several feet smaller than everyone around him. Walking lightly, smiling, bare-armed and straight-backed and making smug easy eye contact with anyone who looks his way. His rank, his bearing, his clothes are all inappropriate for his age, his tiny ten-- eleven-- twelve-year-old body. Ralph carries himself with an unconcerned ease, with the confidence of someone who knows he can do whatever he wants.

No one likes Ralph. They resent his attitude, his position, his relationship with Vetti. He revels in their resentment. They can't do anything about it. He outranks very nearly the entire universe-- and even if he didn't, fear of Vetti would keep them well at bay. Their vicious sidelong scowls land on the possessive hand Vetti rests on Ralph's head, a silent _don't you dare._

There is no need to be polite to anyone, no need to make himself invisible, no need to do anything he doesn't want to.

The concerned looks and quiet murmurs are just jealousy in disguise, he thinks. The people pulling him aside and asking him if he needs help, if he needs someone to talk to, if he needs a place to go-- they're just jealous. They just want to push him away from Vetti because they want him for themselves.

Vetti gives him his own room, everywhere they go, and Ralph never sleeps there. He doesn't like being alone, and neither does Vetti. He doesn't say so, but Ralph knows for a fact that Vetti sleeps better when Ralph is with him.

"We're going to rule the universe together," Vetti murmurs into his hair.

"I know," Ralph says.

He fits himself into Vetti's life like a missing puzzle piece. He weaves himself in. He makes himself not just useful, but necessary. Inextricable.

Ralph is twelve years old and the world fits in the palm of his hand.


End file.
